Qianjiang Evening News hourly news reporter Zhang Jinhua
The 9th year of the Spring Breeze Reading List is blowing.
A few days ago, another year's eye-catching Chunfeng Yue Reading List selection has been launched, and in the 2020 good books, a new Chunfeng Yue Reading List will be jointly created by domestic cultural celebrities, heads of major authoritative publishing houses and readers.
Different from the previous year's Spring Wind List "Good Books 60", this year's Spring Wind Delight Reading List will have 66 good books selected.
Chunfeng is also literate, and flowers come to turn books. Today, we launch the Spring Wind Celebrity Recommendation book by Wang Weisong, President of Shanghai People's Publishing House.
Let's start with a show —
[Brain Hole Question: What if there were no books in the world?] ”】
Wang Weisong's answer:
A world without books is like a life without lights.
The following is the spring wind big coffee recommendation book by Wang Weisong, president of Shanghai People's Publishing House——
Journey to the Highlands of Asia: The Rise and Fall of Civilization
Arnold Toynbee by Li Juan, Shanghai People's Publishing House, August 2020
【Recommended】
From Afghanistan to Pakistan to India, walk in the "cradle" and "relic" of ancient civilization. A Journey through History and Reality, one of Toynbee's most outstanding travelogues. The heritage and charm of Eastern civilization have attracted and inspired countless scholars from the West, and the historian Toynbee's thinking on the Asian plateau has witnessed the colorful world civilization due to exchanges.
The Complete Translations of Feng Zhi
Translated by Feng Zhi, Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2020.10
A poet's literary reading history, will it be wrong to follow Feng Zhi to read foreign literature?
Tinder
Liu Tong, Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2020.12
A good-looking party history book. Tell a shocking story of pathfinding, and dissect the source of the communists' strength to achieve victory. With a unique historical theory, rich historical evidence, and clever historical knowledge, it is read with great joy, and you hate that you can't read it in one breath.
Preemptive reading
Toynbee's Journey to the Highlands of Asia: The Rise and Fall of Civilizations
The eastern intersection of the ancient world
There is an old European saying, "All roads lead to Rome". From a European point of view, that's a matter of course. This statement makes no sense, because Europe is only on the edge of the ancient world. If you don't live in Europe, but in Iraq, the historical center of the Ancient World, you will see a completely different map of the Ancient World's roads: half of the road leads to Aleppo and the other half to Beglam, the historic city of Kabisakanish. It is located at the southern foot of the central mountain range of the Hindu Kush Mountains, where three roads cross the mountains meet.
The civilizations of the ancient world seem to have originated in Iraq more than 5,000 years ago and spread east-west at the same time. It enters Persia, Afghanistan, the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, and East Asia to the east, and egypt, Anatolia, the Aegean Sea, northwest Africa, Europe, and Russia to the west. The ancient civilization born in Iraq has spread all the way to the end of the earth, and the known world has become colorful. Civilization is no longer a single civilization, and a colorful regional civilization was born, with traces spread from the northeasternmost Japan to the northwesternmost Ireland, deep into java under the equator. The regions of younger civilizations are not exactly the same as each other or as a whole and the known world. Different geographical locations divide them into two categories, one is the "Jedi" and the other is the "Thoroughfare". The former is located on the periphery of the known world, constantly accepting the influence of the world center, but cannot continue to spread; the latter is an area where roads converge from all directions and radiate out in all directions.
Typical of the Jedi are Japan at the northeastern tip of the known world, Java at the southernmost tip, and Morocco, the British Isles and Scandinavia in the far northwestern corners. Typical thoroughfares are the two flanks of Iraq: Syria (in the broadest geographical sense) is the hub of western Iraq, while northeastern Iran (present-day Afghanistan) is the eastern hub. Syria has always been the bridge between South-West Asia, Africa, Asia Minor and Europe, while Afghanistan has been the bridge between South-West Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia and East Asia.
The vicissitudes of the sea, the Jedi change, and vice versa. Europe was a Jedi until 1700 BC, and it was not until the 3rd century BC that it was integrated into the known world. For the past 17 centuries, the Atlantic Ocean has been holding back the westward expansion of ancient civilizations. But the Spanish-born Roman poet Seneca had long predicted that one day the trench would change. After 1400, his prophecy came true. In the 15th century, the Portuguese invented a new type of sailing ship that could sail continuously for several months. Thus, western Europeans had the ability to control the seas, and Western Europe temporarily became the center of the world, where all the shipping routes converged and diverged. Revolutionary changes in basic means of transportation have temporarily kicked Afghanistan and Syria out of the game. Because these two former hubs of civilization were able to thrive, they relied mainly on land transportation and the use of livestock to transport supplies: donkeys, horses and camels. But technology doesn't stand still, and today we're witnessing newer technological inventions: mechanized tracks, roads, vehicles, and airplanes. They would deprive Western Europe of its temporary world leadership and allow Syria and Afghanistan to flourish again.
Those who study contemporary international affairs will certainly have a strong interest in Afghanistan, as will those who study the five-thousand-year history of civilization in the ancient world, because the main lines of historical development — economic, political, demographic, artistic and religious — will lead us again and again to the intersection of east and west in the ancient world. Afghanistan was once a highway of migration, civilization and religious expansion, and the heart of empires. There are countless stories about Afghanistan, and a complete catalogue alone probably costs a volume of ink and ink, and the specific content is difficult to accommodate in a single chapter, so I will give just a few examples.
In the 6th century BC and later, the Persian Achaemenid Empire conquered Afghanistan and expanded into the Indus Valley, bringing with it the alphabet Aramaic, which evolved from the Phoenician script, as one of its official languages. Although a 3rd-century BC Arabic and Greek bilingual stele was recently unearthed in Kandahar, erected by Ashoka of India, Aramaic did not exist long as an international language of communication after Alexander the Great overthrew the First Persian Empire. On the other hand, the history of the conquest of the Aramaic alphabet is enough to dwarf the conquests after the collapse of the Persian Empire, and even the expansion of Genghis Khan. In western Iran, the Aramaic alphabet is used to write a local Iranian language: Bowl. Even more astonishing is the use of the Aramaic alphabet from Afghanistan to the southeast into the Indian subcontinent and northeast throughout Asia. On the northwestern border of the Indian subcontinent, the Aramaic alphabet evolved into the Baloo script, which was used to write some Indian dialects derived from Sanskrit. Traveling northeast across the Amu Darya River, the Aramaic alphabet has long been used to write Sogdian, a Central Asian Iranian language, and Uyghur, a Turkic language in Central Asia, and eventually to Mongolian and Manchu. For example, the inscriptions of the Qing Empire at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing are written in three languages: Chinese, Manchu and Mongolian in the Aramaic alphabet.
After Alexander the Great overthrew the First Persian Empire, the Greeks arrived at the vine-filled Parpa Misadai, from where they could cross the Hindu Kush Central Mountains from south to north. There, they succeeded in spreading Greek civilization in Bactria, north of the Hindu Kush Pass, and between the Hindu Kush and the Amu Darya River, and their influence lasted for centuries.
Around 183 BC, the Indian Peacock Dynasty declined, and the Greek ruler of Bactria, Demotliu, took the opportunity to cross the Hindu Kush Mountains and occupy what is now southern Afghanistan and Punjab. Thereafter, the Greeks ruled Bactria for more than half a century and south of the Hindu Kush Mountains for two centuries. The golden currency of the Greek monarchs is proof of this. But in this region, the influence of Greek civilization lasted far longer than the Rule of the Greeks. Because the Kushan Empire, which succeeded the Greek Empire in Bactria, was larger and longer-lived, and called itself a pro-Greek. Although the Kushan Empire used the local Iranian language of Bactria rather than Greek as its official language, they spelled it in the Greek alphabet. For example, the Bactrian tablets found in the Fire Palace of the Kushan Emperor Kati Sega are written in Greek letters, located in Sulkh Kotal Sulkh Kotal, an ancient site in the southern part of the Bactrian region, 18 kilometers north of Pulkhumri, the capital of Afghanistan's Baghlan Province, with the ruins of a temple built during the reign of the Kushan Empire. , crossing the central mountains of Hindu Kush at the pass and on the way to Balkh. Of course, there is also a strong Greek element in what we call Gandhara-style art, which flourished during the Kushan Empire, centered on the empire's important cities: Begram, Peshawar, Taksira.
Greek art influenced Gandharan art in the Kushan Empire from two directions: from Bactria through the Hindu Kush Mountains, and from Alexandria, Egypt, across the Indian Ocean. In the 1st century, at the beginning of the establishment of the Kushan Empire, Greek sailors entered the Indian Ocean from the Egyptian Red Coast port and found that they could use the monsoon to cross the Indian Ocean directly and reach the Indus Delta without having to sail close to the Arabian and Balochistan coasts. The greatly shortened voyages activated trade between the Indus and Nile rivers. Thus, in the Gandhara art of the Kushan Empire, the Greek elements from Alexandria through the Indus Valley enhanced the influence of the Greek elements from Bactria across the Hindu Kush Mountains.
After the overthrow of the Sassanid Persian Empire by Arab Muslims in the 7th century, history repeats itself at the eastern crossroads of the Ancient World. Like the Greeks a thousand years ago, the Arabs were deeply rooted in the area between the Amu Darya River and the Hindu Kush Mountains, once known as Bactria. These Arab Muslims, like their Greek predecessors, eventually crossed the central Hindu Kush Mountains and invaded the Indian subcontinent. Thus, Islamic civilization, like Hellenistic civilization, entered India via Afghanistan.
All of these migrations of peoples, empires, civilizations and religions crossed Afghanistan from outside India into the Indian subcontinent. But there have also been a number of movements from India through Afghanistan into other regions, one of which is the introduction of Buddhism to East Asia, which has been extremely important to human history to this day.
After alexander the great's death, competitors competing for the spoils of war divided up the remnants of the First Persian Empire, including the founder of the Indian Empire, Jandhara Gupta. He annexed the territory temporarily occupied by Alexander the Great in the Indus Valley and merged it with the ancient Kingdom of Magadha in the Ganges Valley. He then expanded further westward through a deal with the Macedonian general Seleucus the "victor": Jandhara Gupta gave Seleucus 500 war elephants to help him deal with his most fearsome opponent, anticotia. In exchange, Seleucus ceded a large area of former Persian territory west of the Indus River and south of the Hindu Kush Mountains to Jandhara Gupta. A bilingual stele erected by King Ashoka, the grandson of Jandhara Gupta, was recently unearthed in Kandahar, and the inscription indicates that Kandahar must have belonged to the side of the Peacock Dynasty after the Peacock Dynasty and Seleucid redrawn the border.
The westward expansion of the Peacock Dynasty established by Jandhara Gupta was only a political achievement, and even on the surface it was far from a success. Because just a century and a half later, the Peacock Dynasty fell apart, and the Bactrian Greeks penetrated deep into the heart of India, crossing the end of Alexander the Great's crusade. But when Jandhara Gupta's grandson, Ashoka, converted to Buddhism, Indian influence spread beyond the Indian subcontinent in more far-reaching forms. An inscription by Ashoka himself reveals that he once sent a group of monks to preach the Dharma in the Hellenistic Empire after the Persian Empire. We don't know what the outcome of this Buddhist mission in the Hellenistic world was, but in India, Ashoka's conversion did make Buddhism invincible for at least six hundred years. Even after the fall of the Peacock Empire, the power of Buddhism influenced waves of invaders who crossed the Hindu Kush Mountains. King Mirinda, one of the most important Greek rulers of Bactria in India in the 2nd century BC, also appeared as a participant in a dialogue in the Buddhist classic Mirinda Sutra. At the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, the greatest Kushan Emperor, Gyalsa Sega, although not directly converted to Buddhism, became a protector of Buddhism.
It was through the Kushan Empire that Buddhism spread from India through present-day Central Asia in the Soviet Union and Xinjiang to northwestern China, and from there to all of China, as well as Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. This is the most influential event in Afghanistan as a crossroads.
Buddhism spread from India to China via Afghanistan, a route that appears very circuitous on the map. Why bypass Tibet? Why not go straight from Bangladesh to Yunnan, China? It is clear that although it is now in the very sensitive Sino-Indian border areas of Southeast Asia, it was still outside the territory of civilization when Buddhism spread eastward. During the Time of Kashesegah, Indian culture had just gained a foothold in present-day Cambodia and Vietnam. It was not until the end of the 13th century that Yunnan was freed from the hands of ethnic minorities and incorporated into the territory of the Mongol rulers of China. Therefore, this road through Afghanistan, although circuitous, is the earliest communication route between China and India. The spread of Buddhism along these lines remains the most important event between China and India to this day.
These examples of Afghanistan's role as a crossroads are just a few strokes in a huge story. But these few examples are enough to prove that scholars of human affairs, whether they study the past, present or future of humanity, must focus on Afghanistan. No matter what country you study, you have to see there with your own eyes. But how long do you need to stay there? Ideally, all working hours may not be enough. So what can be gained in four months and ten days? And that time is also allocated to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Well, my expectations are too high, because as a person who has come over, I know that it is better to hear than to see. Four months and ten days! Surely enough for me to load a cart of new knowledge. Still, I had to race against time. If you want to win, you can't be like a marathon runner, but you have to take out the momentum of the 100-meter sprint. Now, the starting gun rings and I set off.
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Source: Qianjiang Evening News Hourly News